One word about small translation jobs
June 15, 2009 1:02 am On the jobWe had it twice recently, once a 3 word job and once a 4 word job had to be canceled as no translator was ready to accept the job!
I can understand that it is not appealing to do such a short job.
Money wise it simply doesn’t pay off. But here are two reasons why you should consider doing so.
- LingoZ Translations is new on the market. We expect to have new customers that want to try out our service with small jobs first. We have to serve them, to convince them by our quality and hopefully gain a constant customer.
- We do not give penalties to translators declining a job. But we do promote translators that show initiative and dedication. So if you want to invest into your place on the team, please pick up also small jobs.
Please act on your discretion,
Ursula
June 15th, 2009 at 5:48 am
There must be something out of the translator’s control going on here, because I did see the project both times and logged on immediately to work on it, but as soon as I was logged on I could see that the project had been “canceled”. This has happened with projects 33, 40, 65, 79 & 80. I agree that if a project is short enough somebody should pick it up anyway, but what about when the project is cancelled way too soon?
The time difference between countries also comes into play here, but I have stayed up until late to be able to pick up jobs only to find them cancelled right away. Could this be another bug? Otherwise, how long is a job left open before closing or cancelling it? Why does it get cancelled anyway, instead of leaving it there until somebody picks it up?
Sometimes I have even stayed logged on to My Projects page all day, only to find out that when a new job comes along and I want to work on it, I have to log on again, that is, the system logs me off after a certain time. I think this should not happen. What do you think?
Best regards,
Adriana Adarve
June 15th, 2009 at 6:49 am
I´ve had the exact same experience to accept jobs, at the moment I check them on my profile, they appear as canceled or expired. I understand that “job expired” means the job was already taken, nevertheless I haven´t received any email confirming that as I did the first time.
Regards.
June 15th, 2009 at 9:25 am
I wanted to accept it, but could not find a way to do so! It said it was delayed 6h, though I am a member, so it should not. And I just could not see anywhere where to click to accept it! Are there still some bugs flying around? Emma
June 15th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
I agree with the previous comments. I received the notification and logged in to try to accept the job right away, because I was online at the time. But as soon as I logged in, the job appeared as cancelled and there was nothing to do.
Maybe there’s something wrong with the times or something but… I tried to accept it. I really don’t mind how long is the work, as I’m interested in helping this to grow and work out. 
Hopefully, future works will work properly.
Cheers!
June 15th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Adriana is correct. There’s nothing wrong accepting tiny jobs and they are part of a project that has to expand to cover a wide range from the word count perspective. What obviously is seriously wrong is the system. As an example, I received an email for the 33 words project 81 and loged in within 20 minutes of its posting IDT. It had already gone!
Cheers to all.
June 17th, 2009 at 8:11 am
Hi Ursula,
Thanks for your hard work and your answers.
I just want to comment that something must still be wrong with the time zoning.
So far I have only received one job notification, and it arrived at 3:42 A.M. my time. Obviously by the time I saw it, it had gone.
thanks again.
June 21st, 2009 at 5:06 pm
I just came back from a vacation and am trying to get into the new concept. Many complaints are about getting jobs at a time when people are sleeping (yes, freelancers do sleep too, at least once in a while) or trying to accept a job that is already taken. I am working with another somewhat similar concept for quite some time now. Their solution: The translators get a notification about a project, but as soon as one translator picks it up it is blocked and I don’t even have to look at it anymore.
LingoZ’s system that the translator should accept or decline the translation seems a bit time consuming and complicated for those that don’t take or get the translation. Would there be a possibility for you to block the job for everybody else as soon as it is picked up by one translator? It might be frustrating that we came too late but at least we don’t have to write anymore.
Otherwise, I wish us all good luck with this project and think Ursula et al. are doing a great job. Thank you!